# 4.20. How do I unzip tarballs with the 'bz2' extension?

First, you need the bzip2 package. Get it from your favourite FTP site if you haven't already got one. Next, to view the contents, simply do this:

     $ bzip2 -cd files.tar.bz2 | tar tvf -

To extract, do this instead:

     $ bzip2 -cd files.tar.bz2 | tar xvf -

Of course, you can also use something like:

     "tar --use-compress-program bzip2 -xvf files.tar.bz2"

. Please "man tar" and "man bzip2" for further information, and you might also want to read up the Bzip2 mini-HOWTO. By the way, the Bzip2 home page is at http://www.muraroa.demon.co.uk/.